AMD: Southern Islands (7*** series) Speculation/ Rumour Thread

[Albuquerque]

You machine is nice, but 6 SSD's in a RAID? I wonder which use case would need this config but not do well with a SSD/HDD combo.

Strictly the e-penis case There's no legitimate use for this kind of disk throughput, except "to see." We have a few of us hardcore nerds at the office, and we like to (when possible) give a bit of good natured one-upmanship to eachother when someone builds a new rig.

I've been the guy in last place for a while now, so I needed a bit of ass-kickery for this year. Give it another 18 months and one of our other resident guri will supercede this rig.

Having used multiple monitors for work, I am never going back to single monitors, even for normal office-like work, let alone something like gaming/programming. I wonder why you using only one.

I am constrained by desk space at this moment; both my desk at work and my desk at home. The work that I do is pretty high level (gant charts, process and workflow diagramming, strategic vision and that sort of noise) so my need for EPIC screen real-estate is not what it used to be. I do use a 27" ACER at work (2048x1152, bizarre resolution)

The home PC sees a lot of video transcoding which can run in the background, and a lot of video gaming which would really need monitors in odd quantities (1,3,5) to be seriously useful IMO. I'm never going to go "down" from this U2711, so I'll probably need three of the bastards. Which means another $1300 in monitor hardware (if I can find two more of the same monitors for the steal-of-a-price that I bought my first) along with at least another $500 in video card hardware to power it all.

So yeah, $2000 on top of a $5500 rig? Damn man, do you think I'm made of pure cash?

 

[Davros]

been posted ?

Altogether AMD will be reducing the prices on 3 of their 7000 series cards: the 7970, the 7950, and the 7770. The 7970 will be dropping by $70 from $549 to $479 – below the GTX 680 – while its lower tier counterpart the 7950 will be dropping $50 from $449 to $399. Meanwhile the 7770, which was undoubtedly the worst priced member of the 7000 series, will be seeing a price drop of $20 to bring it from $159 to $139.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5754/radeon-hd-7000-series-price-cuts-promos-inbound

 

[Rangers]

Giving away Dirt Showdown, Nexuiz, and Dues Ex with 7900 is a really nice touch.

I dont care about getting Dirt 3 with my card, but Dirt Showdown sounds like something new, and Deus Ex is something I might want to try out. With 7950's now as low as $370, it's a great deal.

 

[Dooby]

1050mhz 7970s can now be found for £360 in the UK, compared to £415 for a 925mhz version last week, which is good, I suppose...

*Still* feels ~£50 too much.

I've not been happy with the prices of this generation but I'm still amazed at both companies price gouging on essentially minor spec increases. £100 for 50mhz core increase? £180 for 2GB vs 4GB on the 680? I obviously have zero idea on prices, but 2GB can't cost that much, surely?

 

[UniversalTruth]

Yup, if you consider the record breaking low prices of memory in general, it is very unexpected, interesting, surprising (I don't know which word fits best) that both companies are charging so noticeable price premium on memory size, given how negligible actually the benefit from double memory is. A slow chip is a slow chip even if you put 10 GB next to it.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Overclocked SKU's and differing framebuffer sizes are AiB solutions.

 

[Dooby]

Well, your AIBs aren't helping with your "Big Idea Branding" Dave. I used to buy a GFX card every generation. I haven't this time though, and all I'm left thinking is "money grabbing SOBs". I've said from day 1 (you can call it "complained") that the specs of both companies cards were lackluster, and then these obvious price inflations have soured me to both companies.

It used to be after market cards were worth their value: much better coolers/binned parts for higher clocks not readily obtainable by a random part/etc. But you can sneeze and get a 7970 to 1GHz and much as people like to play it up, I doubt >2GB on a 680 is gonna cause frame rates to shoot up, even on multi-monitors.

You want a top-end brand status, but then you've seemingly let your AIBs run riot, IMO ruining all the hard work you're doing in customer faith.

Again, I'd like to point out I'm in no way technical in these matters, but it feels like you made both a good and bad chip. Your official (reference) speed is 925MHz, but 1GHz is easy and 1.1GHz isn't a low percentage achievement. But then your AIBs cant seem to crack speeds a reference card hits. Where are the 1.2/1.3/1.4GHz cores? (Ok, maybe that last one is a bit OTT :smile *These* would be worth the extra £100-150 disparity, not an overclock I can do with a slider in the drivers provided by yourselves.

This price drop was a good move in the consumers eyes, but for people like myself who want the best but without paying through the nose in relation to the "almost best", it's still not good enough. You can't claim to want to build a brand, and then let the step between yourselves and your customers be so gung ho, and then just say "not our fault". A "brand" is top-down, not just the points you're interested in.

 

[gkar1]

I just bought 2 more 7970s after the price drop (brother was running my hand me down 6970 and wanted to try eyefinity) so I just negated your unwillingness to buy and gave AMD an extra $450+. Don't presume you speak for every consumer...

 

[Alexko]

been posted ?

Altogether AMD will be reducing the prices on 3 of their 7000 series cards: the 7970, the 7950, and the 7770. The 7970 will be dropping by $70 from $549 to $479 – below the GTX 680 – while its lower tier counterpart the 7950 will be dropping $50 from $449 to $399. Meanwhile the 7770, which was undoubtedly the worst priced member of the 7000 series, will be seeing a price drop of $20 to bring it from $159 to $139.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5754/radeon-hd-7000-series-price-cuts-promos-inbound

Right now, Newegg even has a SKU from HIS at $449.99 (+ $7.87 shipping). It seems that AIB partners are willing to push prices even lower, which is a good sign.

That's a full $100 lower than the launch price.

 

[Dooby]

I obviously don't speak for everyone, I have first hand knowledge how the cards are selling.

But in my (quite large) circle of techy friends, who have on a whim spent £650 on gfx cards, £800 on CPUs and £1200 on monitors, there is a distinct feeling of being burned this time around.

Please note that this last rant was based at the non-reference cards, which if you only paid $450, you seem to have bypassed. Would you have spent $150-200 on a 50mhz faster model?

 

[gkar1]

Because every enthusiast that buys a high end $400+ video card runs their cards at default clocks right? I actually bought a pair of the Sapphire OC model ones which are only $459.99 after rebate.(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102982)

My reference Sapphire card does 1.2Ghz core, 1.6Ghz memory at stock 1.112v, custom fan profile (never goes above 50%). I've pushed it to 1.3Ghz@1.2V but I never really needed the extra performance and it was a bit too loud, so I dialed it back. I will give this card to my brother and I will upgrade to the pair I just bought in crossfire (I run at 5760x1200).
My brother is going to get an extra pair of cheap extra 1680x1050 monitors to run eyefinity which a single 7970 should be able to handle easily.

 

[Albuquerque]

Yeah, the Sapphire 7970 OC edition is the one I have; it's a bad-ass card. Love it.

 

[Arty]

NCIX has Sapphire 7970 for 449CAD.

 

[Dooby]

Because every enthusiast that buys a high end $400+ video card runs their cards at default clocks right? ... My reference Sapphire card does 1.2Ghz core, 1.6Ghz memory at stock 1.112v, custom fan profile (never goes above 50%). I've pushed it to 1.3Ghz@1.2V...

You're aware this is my point exactly, right?....

I actually bought a pair of the Sapphire OC model ones which are only $459.99 after rebate.

Your £290 card costs £420 here. Even with 20% VAT, that's still an £80 disparity, no wonder you are so blasé

 

[lanek]

Yeah, the Sapphire 7970 OC edition is the one I have; it's a bad-ass card. Love it.

My second 7970, sapphire is back from RMA.. they have exchange it.

Little bit surprised.. 69% Asic quality, 1175mv... Let see how the card compare with my HIS ( 79%, 1112mv ).

 

[Rodéric]

PowerColor PCS+ HD7950, cool, quiet and running at 880MHz.
(Quieter than the reference card...)

Probably the best tradeof atm.

 

[Davros]

69% ?

 

[lanek]

yes, 69% .. If we trust thoses Asic things, should be excellent for LN2. and not good for Aircooling.

 

[thatdude90210]

PowerColor PCS+ HD7950, cool, quiet and running at 880MHz.
(Quieter than the reference card...)

Probably the best tradeof atm.

My Sapphire HD7950 OC has been running at 1000MHz since day one. But it's a bit sad that one month later, with the same money I could have gotten a HD7970.

Hey Dave, we need an unlock bios.

 

[Pressure]

My Sapphire HD7950 OC has been running at 1000MHz since day one. But it's a bit sad that one month later, with the same money I could have gotten a HD7970.

Hey Dave, we need an unlock bios.

Or saved money?